More sustainable surfboards

By Rachel Cernansky For the Camera

Posted:
11/05/2012 03:11:28 PM MST

Updated:
11/05/2012 03:12:52 PM MST

Colorado might seem like the last place to open a surfboard company. But a little over a year ago, the brothers behind Carve Industries decided it made perfect sense, and things are going surprisingly well.

Ryan Witbeck, who started the company with his brother Jamison, said they're committed to sustainability, which means not only using responsibly-sourced materials, but building products that will last. And because they make their boards from wood, they've been able to take advantage of the area's plentiful beetle-kill pine, which Witbeck said is currently their main source of wood.

Plus, while they custom-make boards to order and ship ocean boards to coastal areas from Maryland to the Caribbean, there's a potentially strong local market, too, thanks to the rise of stand-up paddleboarding, surfing's inland sister sport. Paddleboarding, which involves a large surfboard and a paddle used to propel yourself forward, has been soaring in popularity over the last year or so; as Witbeck observed since arriving just over a year ago, "I've seen more surfboards on top of cars in Colorado than I ever have."

So Carve set up shop, first in an old workshop on the Lyons Farmette because husband-and-wife owners Betsy Burton and Mike Whipp were such fans of what the Witbecks were doing and wanted to help them "get their feet on the ground," said Burton. The company's picking up speed now, and recently moved production into a rental space in downtown Lyons.

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The boards take a few months to make and are not cheap, so the company isn't dealing with large numbers of orders yet, but the handful they do have is enough to keep them busy.

Deanna Moore, who owns Pizza Bar 66 in Lyons, placed an order for a Carve board last month. She and her husband both grew up on the water and recently took up an interest in paddleboarding as a way to reconnect with their love for water. And when she saw Carve's products, she said, "it was like love at first sight."

Plus, for Moore, it's also important to support the community and local businesses.

"We want to help make them successful. To me, it's about supporting your local business," she said. That tends to be a prevalent sentiment in the Boulder-Lyons area, and is likely to work in Carve's favor.

While wooden boards tend generally to be more expensive than their foam and fiberglass counterparts, and Carve boards are no exception -- Witbeck said their prices start around $1,800 and can run up to $4,200 -- they are built to last longer, and at least in the case of Carve, with more eco-friendly materials.

As a surfer, "you kind of inherently have a great deal of respect for the ocean, its power and size," Witbeck said. "As you look more into how the foam and fiberglass boards are made in the world, it's pretty disturbing the chemicals that they use."

Carve boards use water-based glue and are finished with a plant-based, rather than petroleum-based, epoxy.

Witbeck hopes Carve can contribute to a broader philosophy that sees society spending its dollars more conscientiously -- on things that we will value for longer periods of time and even hand down to the next generation, rather than throw away a few months or years down the road.

"Our boards are built to last 75 to 100 years -- something that you own for a lifetime and pass it down," said Witbeck, adding that their emphasis is on "building things the way they used to be built -- where they're built to last, and utilizing what you have access to without depending on supertankers to get it across the ocean."

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